After the motherly Miss Drafan, we passed into Miss Robson's class. Miss Robson was another of those who had no chance to marry because of the lost generation of young men in WW1. She was more of
a benevolent 'Grande Dame'. She was tall and slim and dressed in long clothes,
smelt of scented soap and started us with numbers. This was before the psychologists became
involved in teaching and we learned by boys and girls standing in a row in
front of the class. There were no apples
or oranges for illustration and none of us could remember having seen bananas.
When it came to subtraction, six minus two for example, six of us stood
in a row and two went back to their seats. She asked who was to be subtracted
and it was usually boys because one or two of the girls came close to tears
when they were chosen. Maybe she was more of a psychologist than we knew
because she taught us not to pick on the vulnerable and to treat young ladies with respect; not that Grace, or Tiptoes as my dad christened her as she always looked ready to tiptoe through the tulips, needed any assistance over respect. When she deigned to speak to us, she ordered us rough rude boys around like a fairy queen.
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